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In the last few years, GPS watches have completely revolutionized the way runners train. I’m not old by any means, but I still recall doing many of my training runs in high school, college, and even as a professional on roads that I spray painted after measuring them in my car. When I first began coaching athletes online and assigning long intervals and tempo runs of varying distances, it was quite the challenge for many runners, especially the newer ones, to manually mark out routes for their most important workouts. Luckily, GPS devices have made training a much simpler process.

However, as adoption of GPS devices increases dramatically, I find more and more runners becoming completely dependent on their watches, sometimes to the detriment of their training progression and racing skills. Is it possible that becoming too reliant on your GPS device can actually hinder your fitness and race times? I think so. Here are the three possible drawbacks to having a dependency on your GPS and how you can counter them.

Jeff Gaudette

Jeff has been running for 13 years, at all levels of the sport. He was a two time Division-I All-American in Cross Country while at Brown University and competed professionally for 4 years after college for the Hansons-Brooks Distance Project. Jeff's writing has been featured in Running Times magazine, Endurance Magazine, as well as numerous local magazine fitness columns.